OT in state government hit record $611M in 2013

Overtime at state agencies hit a record $611 million in 2013, a nearly 16 percent increase compared to 2012, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said today.

He said overtime increased in 2013 for the third straight year.

“State employees logged 14.8 million overtime hours last year, costing taxpayers a record $611 million. New York’s overtime bill is increasing and needs to be reined in,” DiNapoli said in a statement.
Gannett’s Albany Bureau reported earlier this month that 11 state employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime alone last year.

DiNapoli said the state’s agency workforce has declined 10.9 percent, from 180,564 in 2007 to 160,829 last year. The figures do not include SUNY, which is outside the executive agencies controlled by the governor.

Three agencies that operate institutional facilities – the Office of Mental Health, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities – accounted for 64 percent of the overtime in 2013, DiNapoli said, but their overtime dropped slightly overall.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office has defended the overtime costs, saying much of it had to do with recovery efforts after Superstorm Sandy in October 2012, as well as lowering the number of employees.